June Madness

After 2 hours, I can finally say that I have finished one Spanish final exam!! After going to every class, rapidly writing down notes from 3 different teachers with 3 horrible powerpoints, and reading packets upon packets of information, I have finally completed Historia del Siglo XX!!  This was a humanities class that studied human ecosystems across history and into the modern day by splitting it up into 3 sections taught by 3 teachers: Julio taught us about the Grand Area (the Americas, their territories, and Great Britain with its territories), the other man -who's name escapes me- taught about Germany and their constant dominance over Europe, and Flavia taught us about Japan and the micro-system of Russia, the USSR, and the perifery.  They also made sure to talk about the changes in capitalism and jump around as much as possible in their lectures.  

I know I've mentioned it before, but all that I have seen from the University of Cádiz is terrible teaching.  Three teachers, with three subjects, teaching one class from the published works of one of the teachers seemed confusing and aggravating.  The main text was written by the first teacher and the assigned reading about the transitions to democracy in Central America and Reunification of Germany were both written by his students and edited by him.  It seemed very opinionated as well.  Another teacher didn't seem to know what she was talking about and even argued with me and some of the British kids over the split of Germany after WWII... supposedly East Germany was ruled by the USSR while West Germany was split into 4 zones; American, French, English, and by another country that she couldn't remember (or that didn't exist).  Questions were answered in round-about ways and people were made fun of because of their accents.  My poor friend Chelsea finally got the courage to speak up in class only to have the teacher respond to her in a super-American accent...This happened to Chelsea three times and to a British friend once which I think is pretty harsh.  Being judged by your accent and grammar is a language learner's worst nightmare.

Bashing the teaching aside, the exam was (in my opinion) not authentic.  "Authentic examination" is a teaching term that links the examination of students with material and forms of learning.  An authentic exam for this class would be multiple choice (since we only learned and memorized facts and dates) and short answer questions about either the evolution of a superpower, how the process of becoming a superpower relates at a global level, etc.  The exam should also cover everything learned in the class.  [My teaching classes at RIC make me notice things].  

Our exam was one question (or statement rather) on the chalkboard: "The geo-strategy of North America".  With that we received white printer paper to write our essay...it didn't even have lines.  Three people put their names on a blank piece of paper and then left; those are Erasmus that only need to sit in on the class and their grades didn't matter.  The rest of us scribbled away trying to pull everything from the course together:  Harris treaty and Treaty of Kanagawa...manifestdestiny and imperialism...50 year war/Spanish American war...1898 and Islands in the pacific...espacio vital and Lebensraum...I wrote down as much as I could on a scrap paper, organized it according to the subsystems of capitalism, and wrote a 4 page essay entitled "Las claves de la geoestrategia norteamericana:  una examinación del poder estadounidense durante un sistema capitalista" [The key factors of the North American geo-strategy: an examination of American power during a capitalistic system].

I pulled everything I knew from high school American History class and cramming for this test, tried to link it to everything, and...I THINK...pulled it off pretty OK.  The grades get posted next week so we'll see how I do!!  42.9% of registered students pass the course...Linguistics exam on Wednesday too, this one scares me more.  50% of students fail the course according to the university website.  While more than half fail the Siglo XX class, the Linguistics class is much more complicated and we've missed months at a time due to Spanish holidays.  (Plus the course load is the heaviest in this class.)  Wish me luck!